The abyss of the darkness

My wordy semi-rant about FF Tactics has been updated today to clean up the page's format and tighten my arguments. I didn't add any new points but I did reword some sections to better reflect what I think about the game and to flow smoother.

I also made some minor updates to the Street Fighter stuff as I get ready to work out some of those pesky details about cyborgs I've been putting off for the last year.

Well part 32 is rendering and eventually part 31 should be done processing over at YouTube.  The game is steadily winding down now but I've got a good chunk of material yet to cover what with warp code oddities and all.  Oh and I'm sure I'll die to Morganna a bunch of times too.  I might finish the game before the new year.

Might being the key word there.  Oh well, there's really no rush.  I have other games I want to play but there's no reason to get worked up.  I've yet to try the Final Fantasy Tactics or Shining Force 2 hard mode hacks/redesigns.  I'm almost scared to see what they've done to Final Fantasy Tactics.  I love the game but some of those battles *coughWeigrafcough* were pretty tough to begin with.

See my strategy with Weigraf has changed very little over several runs.  It's always been Ramza as an Archer with Concentrate and Auto Potion (with only X-Potions in inventory), 2 Ninjas with the best swords you can get at the end of the chapter, 1 Summoner, and then 1 other - usually a healer type to revive Ramza at the beginning of the second part.

In the first part Ramza moves in a set pattern that forces Weigraf into one of the two pits so the knight loses a turn trying to jump out meanwhile letting Ramza pelting his foe with arrows and healing as necessary.  When Weigraf turns into Velius Ramza almost always dies to the demon's first nuke while the two Ninjas each run up and start killing the archaic demons.  The Summoner calls Golem and prepares to tank Velius and the last person revives, heals, or attacks depending on how Ramza is holding up.

Once Ramza is down the Summoner is next on Velius's hit list being squishy and all that.  She can take one physical strike before needing to summon Golem again.  This is a critical point where the strategy can fall apart.  If Velius is too fast he can attack again and kill her.  I had one fight where he had 99% to hit and missed TWICE.  Pheh, she got her barrier back up and by the time Velius pummeled it back down the ninjas had finished their work and started carving him up.

The new swords that become available after clearing the forest in front of the castle make a world of difference.  With the next down my ninjas wouldn't do quite enough damage to kill one of the archaics.  That's bad, really bad.  Speed is critical to limit the amount of punishment Velius can dish out.

Another strategy example from FF Tactics:  the battle versus the engineer in Murond (his name escapes me right now >.<).  I'd bring in Mustadio, beef up his Brave, and have him stay at the starting point with Hamedo, protection from the nasty status effects, and a gun.  Hehe, shoot me now you bastard.  Mustadio couldn't kill anyone because of the Chemist there healing but he soaked up nasty hits by Hamedoing them before they fired and left the rest of the group to deal with the nasty critters.

I like Mustadio.  He's one of my favorite characters in that game.  Don't Move and Don't Act are just so useful.

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Now playing: Kenji Yamamoto - VS GFed Trooper (Long)
via FoxyTunes   

Ahh, Vandal Hearts.  That game is so awesome.  Sure, it's not as customizable as Final Fantasy Tactics and you can't do any backtracking but it's still got plenty of meat to keep me interested.  Recently I've been playing it a hell of a lot more then FFT because I don't have to worry about juggling an assload of equipment and job abilities around.

There's something to be said about simplicity.  Keep it simple!

Now, why do I prefer VH to FFT right now?  Well for starters I love Ash.  He and Ramza have a bit in common in terms of how they get treated and used by The Powers That Be.  Unlike Ramza, however, Ash is truly motivated by the greater good of his country.  That's not to say that Ramza is a selfish jerk (even if he is sometimes) but Ramza works under the radar to benefit Ivalice.  He stops just sort of challenging the political structure of Ivalice.  That's where Delita comes in.

I DO plan on writing up a lengthy piece about what I think of Delita and his role in the narrative, but I really need to replay the game before doing that.  I've still got some holes in my theory about Ramza I want to close up.  Delita is a subtler character and I need notes about how he's animated.  Even in spritework body language is important.

Now contrast this with Ash who becomes the leader of a revolutionary movement in order to fix the screw-ups he allowed to happen in the early chapters of the game.  After hearing about his friends' imprisonment in the renowned imperial fortress, whose name escapes me right now, Ash decides to attack the prison with his forces.  He doesn't willy-nilly charge either he picks a specific road and ambushes the Crimson Guard scouts along the way so they can't report back.  Conversely Ramza makes multiple head-on assaults on fortified areas throughout FFT.

FFT also doesn't have a battle where an ally is slowly lowered into a giant lava pit and you have limited time to save them.  To make that battle in VH worse you can accidently nuke and kill them AND you're up against some nasty enemy spell-slingers.  Good times.

Ok, I'm really rambling right now.  To get back to the point of why I decided to post: I ripped a number of images from Vandal Hearts using some tools on my PC.  It's nothing real fancy mostly background images.  There is one sprite sheet for all the player characters but it's from one angle only and doesn't include any animation frames.  Sorry, couldn't find those.

Being that I still have entirely too much time on my hands I've gone ahead and typed out my myriad of thoughts on a variety of subjects for FFT.  If you don't see any links here then that means I haven't edited to add them yet!

ETA:  here's the first theory about Ramza and Alma.  If you have questions or want to discuss my logic feel free to leave a comment.  If you can provide screenshots to support or dispute my ideas I'm happy to look them over.  I also need confirmation on a few details since I don't currently have any active game files.